Why IT Managers Are Running Scared: The Cloud Changes Everything

Enterprise computing has gotten a somewhat deserved reputation as being a bit boring - after all, almost by definition, it moves slowly while consumer electronics moves quickly as we all lust after the hot gadgets. But as I head back from this year's Gartner Symposium (Link), I'm struck by the thought that enterprise IT is in the midst of a generational change, and the thought has a large number of chief information officers (CIOs) and other IT managers excited, but also more than a little bit scared.

Enterprise computing has gotten a somewhat deserved reputation as being a bit boring. After all, almost by definition, it moves slowly while consumer electronics move quickly with our continual lust for hot gadgets. But as I head home from this year's Gartner Symposium, I'm struck by the thought that enterprise IT is in the midst of a generational change. The same thought has caused a large number of chief information officers (CIOs) and other IT managers to become excited, as well as more than a little bit scared.

This was the second largest Symposium ever, with just about 8,000 attendees -- up from about 6,000 last year. CIO attendance, in particular, was way up by about 25 percent. What's driving this is an overarching interest in cloud computing in one form or another. A lot of the attendees I talked to are convinced this is a huge change that they can't afford to get wrong.

A number of people said that the shift to the "cloud" is the biggest thing to happen to IT since the rise of the Internet nearly a generation ago. But what's interesting is not the basic technology. Virtualization, hosting services, and software-as-a-service have all been around for a long time. Instead, it's the growing realization that many of the things that IT used to exclusively provide for a company -- from hosting servers to deploying applications -- can now be purchased as services from outside vendors -- and perhaps more efficiently. Even if a company uses a "private cloud" solution -- which I think will be more popular than public cloud solutions for most tasks among the largest companies -- it means that many of the things that used to require IT departments can now be handled by business users.

At the same time, workers now want access to all these services from whatever device they want. The combination has many IT managers worried about their careers. And CIO jobs are notoriously short-lived anyway.

Of course, the successful CIOs won't be the ones who see this as a threat, but instead, as an opportunity to finally make IT what it should have been all along: a group dedicated to helping operating units improve the business functions of a company. For companies that go the cloud route, there's still plenty to be done in managing, coordinating, and integrating cloud services; not to mention ensuring items like security and compliance. And for everyone, there are a series of new applications -- from vastly improved business intelligence moving towards data-driven decisions, to an expanding world of video -- that have the potential to really drive business. I was personally quite interested by a session on NoSQL databases.

At Symposium, virtually every session I went to on cloud computing was packed to the limit. Gartner sees cloud computing, social computing, context-aware computing, and pattern-based strategy as the four biggest trends impacting the IT landscape today. Their analysts talked about how this is changing IT departments and the large IT vendors that IT departments rely on. Indeed, it suggests that Microsoft and VMware are the two companies best poised to dominate enterprise applications and cloud computing.

Similarly, when I went to a session titled "Google vs. Microsoft: The Battle for Future Dominance ... and Apple's Sneak Attack," it was packed. The session focused on Google as "cowboys," trying everything but being unpredictable; and Microsoft as "stewards," being reliable with lots of things, but not as exciting. Apple isn't focused on the enterprise at all, but it's happy to enter through a trend towards consumerization.

Speaking of Apple, the other big trend I saw was the iPad. An amazing number of attendees were using these devices, though, in some cases, I wonder if they were just trying to look cool. I love my iPad for reading and content consumption, but a lot of attendees were trying to type notes on them and were clearly frustrated by the onscreen keyboard. Yet, these are IT executives; you know they all have laptops.

This trend was even clearer at the ITexpo trade show area where there were 180 or so exhibitors all pushing for IT attention. Apple wasn't there -- it rarely exhibits at trade shows -- but it seemed like half the vendors had drawings for an iPad if you'd give them your information.

In addition, though relatively few companies are actually doing this today, the sessions I attended on virtual desktops were also packed. Virtualization has already impacted servers dramatically. Some see the same happening to desktops, but, as this typically costs more than the traditional client model, cost is an issue.

Despite any concerns, Gartner remains bullish on IT spending, saying worldwide enterprise spend will reach $2.5 trillion by 2011. It's not the huge growth we've seen before, but it is an improvement. My guess is that the numbers aren't nearly as important as the new role IT is being asked to take on.

Michael J. Miller's Forward Thinking Blog: forwardthinking.pcmag.com
Michael J. Miller is chief information officer at Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment firm. From 1991 to 2005, Miller was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, responsible for the editorial direction, quality and presentation of the world's largest computer publication.
Until late 2006, Miller was the Chief Content Officer for Ziff Davis Media, responsible for overseeing the editorial positions of Ziff Davis's magazines, websites, and events. As Editorial Director for Ziff Davis Publishing since 1997, Miller took an active role in...
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